By no persuasion could Adela induce her to speak of Bill Warden.

She turned the subject whenever it approached him, professing an ignorance which Adela found excessively provoking.
They saw nothing of him during the remainder of the week, and very little of Fletcher Hill, who went to and fro upon his business with a machine-like precision that seemed to pervade his every action.

He made no attempt to be alone with Dot, and she, with a shyness almost overwhelming, thankfully accepted his forbearance.

The day they had fixed upon for their marriage was rapidly approaching, but she had almost ceased to contemplate it, for somehow it seemed to her that it could never dawn.

Something must happen first! Surely something was about to happen! And from day to day she lived for the sight of Bill Warden's great figure and the sound of his steady voice.